faux painting: striping

[Cory]

We're planning to put up a chair rail in our dining room and I think the walls need some definition. Because the area is so small, I've decided to do the faux finishing of adding stripes in the same color but in different sheens.

FIRST QUESTION: I currently have a satin finish on the walls - do you think I can go ahead and tape off my stripes and paint every second one with semi-gloss/glossy or should I repaint the section in flat paint first?

SECOND QUESTION: should I use semi-gloss or glossy paint?

Has anyone done this before and if so, can you give me some tips!

Thanks... CC

[The Reverend Natural Light]

A friend of mine did exactly what you described, and it really looks great. The paint was flat and semi-gloss (eggshell?) in perfectly matching colors.

You could paint the stripes onto the existing paint if you can perfectly match the color. Any difference and it wouldn't look as nice since it is sort of an 'illusion' effect. 90% of the job is masking the lines so why not just paint a fresh base coat?

-rev

[Mordred9]